Even at -7 still getting 200 miles and its not important. I dont do 200 miles a day, it doesnt matter, I can recharge anywhere. People still worry about something that is inconsequential. I had a diesel focus 12 years ago and would ger 65 mpg easy. Until it winter. One winter was quite bad and I only drove a mile to see my brother and a mile back. I done that for a week, and noticed the car has used half a tank! 2 miles per day for a week and half a tank used. Its not just EV.S. That get hit by cold weather. If you only get 150 miles, its enough, unless you are driving the length and breadth of the country every day…its enough.
Where do I start? I know that you are an EV enthusiast and can’t understand why everyone else isn’t of the same mindset, but to say that range issues are inconsequential is to completely fail to appreciate that not all car users are the same.
It sounds as though, like many Motability customers, you might be a low mileage driver who rarely if ever does long journeys in which case, as long as you can charge at home, an EV is a great option. However, many of us do regular long journeys. I often do long journeys that an ICE car or PHEV can do comfortably within its range, but would necessitate a charging stop with an EV. I would find that charging stop to be a real irritation, adding time and inconvenience to my journey. I have just driven home on the motorway in lashing rain. With a full tank of petrol I had no worries. Had I needed petrol, a 5 minute stop at a petrol station, under a canopy, would have been bad enough, but a recharging stop at a public charger exposed to the elements would have been beyond frustrating.
You often claim that the degradation of range in EVs during colder months is no different to ICE cars. This is simply not true – not even remotely. Of the dozens of ICE cars I’ve had the worst drop in mpg during the winter has been around 10% which, given the huge range of ICE cars to start with, is not a show stopper. You only have to look at the real world winter ranges of EVs, or read owners experiences (including this thread) to see that the picture with many EVs is of an entirely different level of magnitude. You have one of the better EVs available through the scheme, so the impact on you, especially if you are someone who doesn’t do many long journeys, won’t be as significant as it is for others but, for some, it renders the car impractical, as has been stated, in a way that wouldn’t be the case with an ICE car. Even if mpg with an ICE car falls well short of expectations, range will be still be much higher.
Finally, if you had a diesel car that used half a tank of fuel doing 14 miles (one mile each way over 7 days) then you either had a fuel leak or a faulty fuel gauge 😂 It’s great to see your never ending enthusiasm for EVs, but there are many reasons why they remain impractical for many, and to dismiss these concerns or frustrations as inconsequential is IMHO unfair.